You are here

Pages

I'm spinning this off of the Dickwolves thread, because this discussion is a lot bigger than even Penny Arcade.

Alternate title is "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Rape But Knew You’d Be An Asshole If You’d Ask"

If there's anywhere on the whole of the internets where there can be a rational discussion of this, I trust it to be here so if you have genuine questions, don't be afraid to speak up. And to get the whole "anyone who supports rape culture must be a monster" thing out of the way, I wrote this in the other thread:

When I choose to wear sneakers instead of cute shoes on a night out, because you never know when you might have to run or fight, I'm supporting rape culture because I'm making the assumption that a rape attempt is an everyday, common event that I need to plan for. When I shake my head at a news story about a drunk woman being assaulted in a stranger's car, I'm perpetuating rape culture by thinking that only women who make bad decisions get raped. When hear a guy in a bar call his girlfriend a stupid whore and don't intervene because I don't want him to beat me up, I'm supporting rape culture because I'm allowing him to think that acting that way, even in public, is acceptable and that people around him support his actions.

Rape culture isn't about people going around saying "yay rape!" It's about acting like sexual violence is a common and normal part of society, and making comments and decisions that reinforce that.

In a teeny-tiny nutshell, rape culture is a phrase used in social science to describe an environment where sexual violence (against any gender) is normalized, considered commonplace, and sometimes glorified.

The outer boundaries of the concept of rape culture are where people get into giant arguments about it, but you can read a good, non-politicized definition here.

Examples of Rape Culture:

Blaming the victim (“She asked for it!”)
Trivializing sexual assault (“Boys will be boys!”)
Sexually explicit jokes
Tolerance of sexual harassment
Inflating false rape report statistics
Publicly scrutinizing a victim’s dress, mental state, motives, and history
Gratuitous gendered violence in movies and television
Defining “manhood” as dominant and sexually aggressive
Defining “womanhood” as submissive and sexually passive
Pressure on men to “score”
Pressure on women to not appear “cold”
Assuming only promiscuous women get raped
Assuming that men don’t get raped or that only “weak” men get raped
Refusing to take rape accusations seriously
Teaching women to avoid getting raped instead of teaching men not to rape

How can men and women combat Rape Culture?

Avoid using language that objectifies or degrades women
Speak out if you hear someone else making an offensive joke or trivializing rape
If a friend says she has been raped, take her seriously and be supportive
Think critically about the media’s messages about women, men, relationships, and violence
Be respectful of others’ physical space even in casual situations
Always communicate with sexual partners and do not assume consent
Define your own manhood or womanhood. Do not let stereotypes shape your actions.
Get involved! Join a student or community group working to end violence against women.

Not a big fan of people brandishing their weapons as a form of intimidation, but it's nice to see it be done for a positive reason once in a while. Actually I'm rather conflicted on it.

Paleocon" wrote:

taking a gun to a protest, you are not a protester. You are something very different and the implications of your presence are deeply unamerican.

The American Justice System failed big time, but I can't see how brandishing weapons helps anything.

“Christianity, sprung from Jewish roots, represents the counter-movement to any morality of breeding, of race, privilege: it is the anti-Aryan religion.” Friedrich Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idols, on why Christianity should be rejected.

Yeah, I'm with Nomad and Paleocon on this one. Protesting the guy - fine. Bringing guns? Not cool at all. Yes, he's a world-class scumbag (and from the sounds of it, so is his dad, and the judge that sentenced him), but bringing guns to a protest turns it into a threat.

From what I've *ahem* heard, cocaine makes you a more stimulated/amplified version of you. I can see how quickly that becomes a bad situation when an asshole is using it.

It's also a great decongestant. Or so I've heard.

But it smells terrible.

Quintin_Stone: Nice looking c*ck you got there, dimmerswitch.
BadKen: So what you're saying is that cops can look at my dick pics without a warrant.
*Legion*: my right hand spent most of those early-teen years in that grip position

At least one part makes sense: When you're full of coke, you're probably not going to judge the situation well enough to understand whether your intended partner is consenting.

I'm going to call bullsh*t on this line of reasoning. With the possible exception of being exceedingly drunk, almost everyone is perfectly capable of reading social cues will high on most readily available recreational drugs.

If someone is a sufficient monster that they would rape someone while on coke then frankly the coke is incidental.

In the broader picture a lot of people's behaviour on drugs is a reflection of the expectations around those drugs. If we continue to expect that people on drugs (coke) can't judge social situations then in turn people on drugs will continue to not bother trying.

I like to imagine that the first message sent across the internet in 1969 was "LOL your ping time sucks"

If your sexual partner is crying, it's probably a good idea to take a time out and make sure she's okay and consenting. End of.

Exactly. I mean how do you even... you know... maintain if your partner is crying unless you're a goddamn sociopath?

I maintained through puppies crying because they didn't want to be in their crates and even that was difficult... a human being crying? Nope. Hell, 2nd time I had sex with my exwife, I couldn't maintain because of the vague sense that she wasn't into it (she wasn't, but hilarious reason, quick discussion, back to normal after).

"What forest are you talking about?! I can't see anything with all these trees in the way!" ~Farscry

At least one part makes sense: When you're full of coke, you're probably not going to judge the situation well enough to understand whether your intended partner is consenting.

I'm going to call bullsh*t on this line of reasoning. With the possible exception of being exceedingly drunk, almost everyone is perfectly capable of reading social cues will high on most readily available recreational drugs.

If someone is a sufficient monster that they would rape someone while on coke then frankly the coke is incidental.

In the broader picture a lot of people's behaviour on drugs is a reflection of the expectations around those drugs. If we continue to expect that people on drugs (coke) can't judge social situations then in turn people on drugs will continue to not bother trying.

I'm willing to concede that I'm potentially monstrous, if that helps, but I've seen enough people making assumptions while drunk/high at parties or clubs that I'm going to continue telling guys to get things figured out while they're sober rather than believe they'll read situations correctly later.

At least one part makes sense: When you're full of coke, you're probably not going to judge the situation well enough to understand whether your intended partner is consenting.

I'm going to call bullsh*t on this line of reasoning. With the possible exception of being exceedingly drunk, almost everyone is perfectly capable of reading social cues will high on most readily available recreational drugs.

I can readily call bullsh*t on that DanB's line of reasoning too. Pretty much every readily available recreational drug explicitly affects your ability to accurately judge and respond to social cues. Weed does (paranoia anyone?), ecstasy definitely does ("I love you, man"), meth does ("f*ck it Jerry, that dude doesn't understand what we're trying to do here, just keep shovelling"), coke does ("we own this f*cking town!"), don't even get me started on psychedelics (ever seen a room full of people tripping balls and literally unable to communicate with each other? I have).

There's a reason you should never have sex with someone for the first time while intoxicated. It's consent-kryptonite.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

You've never known true joy until you've shaken a lich stick at someone.

If you're not allowed to drive after consuming the illicit substance because it might cause you to be unable to correctly react to a situation, you should probably not be having sex after consuming said illicit substance.

"What forest are you talking about?! I can't see anything with all these trees in the way!" ~Farscry

It's a pretty Puritanical view of sex, too. The last few posts are dangerously close to "all alcohol/drug fueled sex is rape." And while maybe a case can be made for it in theory, it's Dworkin levels of ideological purity.

<-not a lawyer: From a legal standpoint , if nothing else, I think I agree with worsmythe here, I'm pretty sure contract law requires sobriety before one can consent/agree to a contract and indeed the witness, if required, often has to sign stating that the signee was in fact sober.

Sure most people probably don't have a written contract to whip out and clarify things before sex* but nonetheless as far as the law goes I would think the same standard of sobriety would apply to oral consent to engage in a sexual activity.

It's a pretty Puritanical view of sex, too. The last few posts are dangerously close to "all alcohol/drug fueled sex is rape." And while maybe a case can be made for it in theory, it's Dworkin levels of ideological purity.

And that's why I was careful to qualify it.

Jonman wrote:

There's a reason you should never have sex with someone for the first time while intoxicated. It's consent-kryptonite.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

You've never known true joy until you've shaken a lich stick at someone.

I saw your qualification, which is why I said dangerously close and not actually saying the thing. Thank you for your careful language, btw.

The fact is that reality doesn't reflect this goal in any way, and I'm not sure it should. Our species has been using drugs to have sex since well before this forum was invented, and will continue well after this forum is defunct. Bringing up things like contract law or universal sober consent is just laughable. It's a far more useful expenditure of resources to make the concept of consent sink deep enough into cultural standards that it is considered while intoxicated. Then you only have issues when one or more members suffers memory loss of the consent.